Sunday, January 27, 2008

Winter squash is still going strong and my favorite of the bunch is butternut. It's smooth, not stringy, and lends itself well to sweetness and spice. If you're going to eat vegetables you might as well get some treat in there somewhere.

This is really an easy way to prepare a healthy side dish. Love that beta carotene!

Slice the butternut squash lengthwise (this can be tricky, they're hard to cut but the smaller the squash the easier it will be). You can bake the two halves like that or you can also slice it crosswise so that you have pretty little rounds of squash--you decide. But however you slice it, scrape out the seeds and bake it at 425 for 35 minutes or until you can stick it with a fork and it will be soft, like a baked potato.

Meanwhile, bring the maple syrup and butter to a boil then brush or drizzle the squash with the mixture before the last ten minutes of baking. Nothing to it and it's really tasty.

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And thanks Carinne for this gem of a video. Are you a Princess Bride fan? Well you've got to see this. Funniest thing I've seen all week (regardless of your politics).

Yup, someone said something that wasn't very nice. I have no problem with disagreement and have no fear of another opinion but I also believe that "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

As for embedding video, You Tube provides the code to embed videos for each video they post.

I've been sharing that video with everyone I know. I thought Tony was going to have his milk come out of his nose he laughed so hard. My kids have been running around the house saying, "Huckabee! Huckabee! Huckabee! I'm not listening...!"

I have a butternut squash to cook up this week... I havea few recipes that I use for it but I wanted to try something new...

and lo and behold, you have yet another recipe for me to try! (btw, I tried your spinach one the other day, but I've not posted about it yet, simply because I'm behind on my menu planning for this week, but I will post it soon and let you know!)